EVEN HIGH ACHIEVERS GET ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION

Who are the high achievers? The general idea is that the high achievers are those people with a great deal of motivation and free will, creative people that see an opportunity when everyone sees just a closed door and a turned down request. They tend to be extremely motivated and do not spare any effort to achieve their ambitious agenda. They do things that surpass their condition and they are not just CEOs and directors of departments; they can be anyone with these characteristics. But all these quality come, as usual, with a price. They often have to work harder to have full lives and not just successful careers and nothing else. Their identity is built around the things they do or they achieve, which makes them vulnerable to not being able to handle setbacks very well. Even the high achievers need to learn how to handle their emotions.

Anyone pushed hard enough, hit hard enough by life events in the most vulnerable areas of his beliefs and identity, can have a strong negative emotional reaction that translate into anxiety and depression, a very common combination. Although it takes a great deal of bad news to get them so down, high achievers are also vulnerable to the ups and down of life. The severity of these emotional reactions depends on the intensity of the trigger, its duration and the degree of hopelessness inflicted by it.

In high achievers, often the first symptom detected is an uncharacteristic decline of motivation--

a clear departure from their usual functional state. Gradually, if the problem persists long enough, they find that their confidence is waning. The innovative ideas they were famous for seem to dry up. They are overcome by an increasing, completely uncharacteristic, sense of hopelessness.

Because these feelings are new to them, often they do not recognize them as a reaction to the circumstances, but as a “weakness” and a sign of their own “inadequacy.” Their logic often tells them that one can’t possibly be well equipped to handle the job demands a few months ago and then, suddenly, be incapable of doing so a few months later. What has changed? They know just as much now as they did a few months ago. The only thing that changed is their emotional reaction and the way they now “feel” about things and about themselves.

Because high achievers are used to manage a fair amount of stress on a day to day basis, they initially use their usual coping mechanisms in an attempt to handle these overwhelming feelings: take one extra day off, talk to a trusted friend, pushing themselves even harder, in the hope that they can solve the problem and move on. But when these coping mechanisms that served well before are not enough to help them get out of the “funk,” they become extremely disillusioned.

Often, by this time, the depression and anxiety begins to take physical manifestations. They start having insomnia almost every night. Their appetite is diminished and they lose weight at a fast pace. Their shoulders slump and their backs stoop. All the lines of their faces are now pointing down. They forget to smile. They stop enjoying things they used to enjoy. These are changes a high achiever will often deny are happening, in the hope that they will soon find a way to make them go away. But they can’t find the way out because anxiety and depression affects the very emotional engines one needs to recover from anxiety and depression. What usually happens now is their emotions become engaged in a negative spiral they can’t escape on their own. They reach a point when they desperately need help. Usually at this point, someone in their family, most commonly the spouse, witnessing how their loved one is wasting away, finally sounds the alarm.

The high achievers will delay making the phone call to a psychiatrist not because they have something against psychiatrists in principle as long as other people need them, but because high achievers still convince themselves they are not “that bad.” Recognizing the magnitude of their emotional problem is regarded by them as a personal failure, and failure for high achievers is the biggest disaster imaginable. It is exactly what they spend all their lives finding creative ways of avoiding.

As you may imagine, by the time the high achievers find their way to the psychiatrist’s office to get help, usually with a great amount of nudging and diplomacy from their families, their symptoms have worsened significantly. That makes their recovery longer and more difficult. When I get a new high achiever patient, I know that we both will have to put a great deal of effort and care in getting him well.

The good part is that these people, by their nature very smart and creative, understand quickly the elements of the intervention plan. They ask good questions and they like to feel in control in making important choices in their recovery plan. The more initiative they take in trusting and completing these steps of the intervention, the more trusting and invested they become in its success. This is when their strongest qualities come into play. Their determination and propensity for hard work is coming to life again. They have a new goal now. They thoroughly engage on the healing path, with their eyes firmly focused on the hope of being whole again, which now feels within their reach.

My intervention in these cases is based on my Better Than Cured model. Using a combination of tools, from medication to cognitive behavior therapy, spirituality and life coaching, Better Than Cured has offered great results in helping my high achiever patient. Often, an anti-depressant/anti-anxiety medication is needed to stop the progression of symptoms (anxious feeling, hopelessness, insomnia, lack of appetite, etc.) and to start reversing them. The cognitive behavioral techniques help him learn to dominate anxiety by using the logic of his own mind. When he improves even more, we talk about insight, the driving forces of his motivation and how he relates to goals and ideals higher than himself through spirituality.

As my high achiever patient continues to feel better, he has more energy to go through the day. Getting up to go to work becomes less of an effort and the creative “juices” start flowing again. He feels more grounded and more insightful. This is usually the point when using life coaching tools we start talking about the practical steps he could take to manage the very problems that generated the emotional turmoil. Now that his mind is no longer clouded by excessive negative emotions, he can usually see many new ways out that were hidden from him before. He is now engaged on the positive spiral, where every positive step, builds on the previous one, helping him climb out from under the cloud of hopelessness. He gradually starts feeling more and more in control again—one of the most powerful antidotes against anxiety and depression.

Helping high achievers overcome their anxiety and depression is very rewarding for me. All my patients in this category have been exceptional people who found their way to wellness. Once they recover and become themselves again, it’s easy to understand how they achieved the successes they have achieved in their lives. Whether they have an unusual ability to interpret facts and to connect the dots when most people can make neither head nor tail of that information, or they have an uncanny ability to come up with solutions when most people have given up, or they have an extraordinary capacity to never give up facing rejections and setbacks, they are remarkably talented and creative people in their own fields of interest. Work and career for high achievers is even more important than for other people, the source of great satisfaction and pride, the skeleton on which their entire identity is built. This is why, when unable to perform at their usual high level at work, they feel their entire lives fall apart.

If you are a person in this category or know someone close like this, be aware of these issues. No one is immune to developing an anxiety and/or depression problem. Take corrective measures as early as you detect the signs. An early intervention leads to a faster recovery. Anxiety and depression are not character flaws. They are reactions to life is challenges or to internal struggle. They can be treated and resolved. When you have exhausted all the coping skills you usually have, and still feel anxious and depressed, do not hesitate to ask for help. It’s just like asking for a guide when you get lost in a new city. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it.

Thank you for reading this post. I am extremely interested in what you think about this issue. Your comments will help me better understand and help my patients. Please do not hesitate to write your opinions in the “comment” section below. Thank you.

I took all these pictures at Lotus Land, Santa Barbara, a very romantic property who belonged to Ganna Walska.

WORDS HAVE POWER: WE CAN PSYCH OURSELVES UP AND WE CAN PSYCH OURSELVES DOWN

I cringe every time someone says things like “Oh, I am so depressed! My hair dresser canceled on me today” or “I must be paranoid! I thought I saw my best friend’s husband with another woman!”

In psychiatry, when we talk about depression, we don’t refer to the momentary feeling of frustration one feels when things don’t go her way. Depression is a very serious condition that requires specific interventions to improve. When I hear the word “paranoid” I think immediately of schizophrenia, another serious mental illness. Maybe the passerby who thought she was “paranoid” was referring to being too afraid to admit that a certain unthinkable situation could happen. It’s not paranoia; it is flat out fear. Why, I wonder, do people misuse words so badly? And what kind of effect does that have on them when they do?

When one talks about herself as “paranoid” or “I am such an idiot to have sent that e-mail without spell checking,” she makes herself feel that she can’t do anything right; she can’t trust herself that she saw a painful reality and dismisses it thinking what she sees because it is so unlikely. Unlikely but not impossible. People have affairs and get caught all the time. Why put yourself down? Why induce in yourself a state of mind of mistrust and self-deprecation? Isn’t it better to call it as it is? “I have seen my best friend with the husband of another friend. I wonder what that is about.”

Another expression people use all the time is, “I need to put myself out there.” I don’t know about you but every time I hear it, it makes me think of some terribly embarrassing situation I have to put myself through in order to get a job interview or a date, two of the most common contexts in which it is used.

One of my patients suffering from severe anxiety kept saying how “stupid” she was because she was blurting out exactly what she was thinking in moments of frustration, coming across as “nasty” and very “rude.” At a closer look, it turned out she wasn’t doing it because she was “nasty” but because her anxiety was making her so overwhelmingly frustrated that anxiety was taking away her social filters. It was such a powerful, unbearable feeling that she had to release it immediately. Unfortunately for her, she was releasing these feelings by lashing out angrily at whomever happened to be around. It didn’t matter if it was the delivery man, her husband or even her bosses. Afterwards, because she was really a very nice person, she would torture herself with guilt and embarrassment.

Once we understood that this behavior was a manifestation of anxiety, I assured her that as soon as we got the anxiety under control, she would stop doing it. She was very uncertain about that and she said it in a quite hostile, angry way. Then she clapped her hand over her mouth and said: “See? I did it again. Do you now understand what I mean?” I know she felt really bad she was angry with me. But it was too late. Once something is said, it can’t be un-said. Her anxiety won, yet again, the battle over her best judgment in her mind. In the end, we decided she will learn to quiet down her anxiety and she agreed to take a small dose of an anti-anxiety medication. Also, we composed a short sentence she can say to herself whenever she gets impatient or irritated with others. That phrase was: “I can say everything I need to say, at anytime, and to anybody, in a polite and courteous way.” She wrote it on a piece of paper, repeated it a few times, folded it neatly and put it in her wallet.

Two weeks later, she came in excited, saying: “The medication is working! I did not blurt out my anger in two weeks, not even to my teenage niece who got in a fender bender with my husband’s car.” She then told me all about how she kept her cool throughout the unpleasant discussion the family had with the niece, who was crying and feeling miserable; and how, even though upset, she did not lash out her anger at the girl. Being more patient with her niece helped see how genuinely sorry the young girl was for getting herself in the accident, and it melted her heart.

“It’s brilliant! How did you do it?” I asked, surprised.
“I think it’s the medication.”
“I really doubt that, since Celexa needs at least two to three weeks to work.”

I knew it wasn’t the medication. It was rather the fact that she kept repeating in her mind the sentence we agreed upon, every time she was about to lash out at her guilty but repentant niece. In other words, she used powerful words to control her anxiety and change her behavior, avoiding adding more drama to a bad situation.

Why did it work? Because words have power. They can send our subconscious mind positive or negative signals which determine automatically the choice of words or behavior. This is how she avoided a potentially disastrous fight with her niece. Feeling very proud of herself was an extra bonus.

The take-home point here is, please, try to be kinder with yourself. Soften your inner dialogue. Say you are “disappointed” rather than “depressed;” say you will do an extra proof reading next time you need to send an important e-mail rather than “I’m such an idiot.” When you make a mistake, any mistake, don’t ask yourself, “How can I be so stupid?” Try instead: “Whoops! I made a blunder. But I am learning. I will do it better next time.”

Don’t think “I will put myself out there and date;” but rather, “I will try to see if I can find me a good date tonight.” Read both versions! How does each make you feel?

Have you used the wrong words in a situation and, filled with regret, not known how to correct the damage done? If you did, what did you tell to yourself at that moment? How did that make you feel?

MATISSE INSPIRATION by Christine Forest, Jan. 20,2010

(my first water color adventure)

Medication by Itself? Not the Whole Answer (follow-up on previous blog)

Thank you all for the insightful comments you left on my post, “Why you don’t need to be afraid of anti-anxiety medications.” Your comments are extremely helpful for the readers of this post and for myself as well. They made me think, and I want to share with you additional thoughts on the matter.

While there are now more and more treatment options available, the number of people suffering from anxiety and seeking treatment is still less than half of the number of all people estimated to suffer from anxiety today—40 million in the U.S. alone. Anxious people tend to avoid situations that make them uncomfortable and therefore more anxious. That includes asking for help to treat and heal from anxiety itself. If you are on the fence about this, I urge you not to wait very long before deciding to ask for help. If you feel you can no longer manage your anxiety on your own, do not be afraid to admit it. The sooner you step up the interventions to address it, the easier and faster it will be for you to fight the anxiety and recover. Fortunately, the range of effective interventions available is expanding more and more every year.

Despite many voices in the media blaming the anti-anxiety and anti-depressant medications for being the “source” of emotional problems or for not “working” at all, a consensus is emerging that the real problem is not that the medications are not effective, but that they are not always effective alone and that people do not yet take full advantage of the help they can offer, a point made very well in this article in The New York Times.

People are not well informed about the treatments available for anxiety. Many mental health and other specialists stand on opposing sides of the mental health question, claiming that one intervention is more successful than another. This is how the PhDs put down the PsyDs discussed in this article published this week in Los Angeles Times. The psychiatrists tend to discount the value of psychotherapy, trusting too much the “medical model” of treating emotional illnesses, while other specialists like life coaches, spiritual and various support group leaders are trying to do their best to help people coming to them for emotional support and guidance. These specialists lock themselves in rigid knowledge boxes, narrowing their views to their own field, and deliberately choosing to ignore the value and the experience of others.

Instead of using one type of intervention at a time, a combination of interventions utilizing the knowledge and tools from different fields of expertise will be far more effective. It is possible to create highly individualized intervention strategies that will fit like a perfectly tailored suit the neurobiological profile, personality, life experience and spiritual views of each individual suffering from anxiety, depression or other mental illnesses. That will indeed lead to a more holistic healing and to a much smaller risk of relapse.

The idea of combining interventions to address mental health problems with respect to the complexity of a human mind is not new. In the early 90s Mark Epstein, the author of “Falling to Pieces without Falling Apart,” was initiating a groundbreaking theory at that time of combining psychotherapy with Buddhism. Talking about how unsatisfying he found the use in his work of only theories like “separation and individuation” or psychoanalytic/psychodynamic techniques which, at that time, were the norm and the rage in practicing psychiatry, he started looking toward Buddhism to find additional insights. In his view, Buddhism “is actually answering a basic question that psychotherapy has struggled over the past 100 years to answer, which is how to help people be more present, more tolerant, more generous, and more loving in their lives, and that there is a method that the Buddha articulated that psychotherapy can learn how to blend and use in its own way.” Combined interventions!

Coming from the medical model, which is now all the rage, which considers mental illness strictly a medical condition and arrogantly ignores the intricate psychological and spiritual aspect of the human mind, I have discovered firsthand how unfulfilling, sterile and less effective this approach is when used by itself. The best results using medication alone is improving the symptoms of anxiety by 60 %. This is considered an acceptable standard in psychiatry today. But who wants to be only 60% well? The medical model is a gross oversimplification of mental health problems like anxiety. No wonder the public recoils every time psychiatrists and neurobiologists start talking about the “chemical imbalance of the mental illness.”

Disappointed by the results I was getting by treating my patients only with medications, I started looking for other interventions I could offer to help them better heal. This is how I discovered and learned about the cause and effect relationship between thinking and feeling in cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy; the “real life” practical strategies of life coaching; the solutions offered by Buddhist spirituality regarding accepting ourselves for who we are and being fully present in our lives. Studying the phenomena of human creativity, I realized the enormous potential for healing that the human mind has, taking in the available subjective and objective information and processing it in a radically new way, opening a whole new universe of possibilities toward healing and happiness. Using these combined techniques, my patients not only recovered from anxiety or depression—became cured, but going far beyond that, they became empowered, aware and insightful individuals, much stronger emotionally, setting their recovery goals higher and higher, firmly engaged on their individual road to happiness, becoming, in other words not only “cured” but Better Than Cured. With great success I have tested Better Than Cured intervention for over ten years with thousands of patients in my psychiatric practice. The techniques and principles I use are congenial with who I am: my training, background and my own way of thinking. But Better Than Cured is by no means the only combined technique that could work.

There are many other possible combination techniques that will be highly successful in treating anxiety and mental illness. We only need to start looking at all the methods available today in a new way.

For example, in addition to the revolution in neurobiology and the availability of many new psychiatric medications, there are new methods of psychotherapies emerging, like Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Mindfulness Therapy. Yoga is increasingly more accepted as beneficial for anxiety. Non-medical stress reduction techniques (massage therapy, aerobic exercises, and relaxation techniques) are now more and more recognized as helpful in the treatment of anxiety and depression. Herbal remedies and acupuncture are also gaining more acceptance as viable interventions for stress, anxiety and depression. Western medicine is beginning to pay attention to supplements, even considering their concomitant use to boost the benefits of medications; for example, using Lexapro (an anti-anxiety/anti-depressant medication) in conjunction with St. John’s wort, allowed the use of smaller doses of Lexapro to be effective for depression with fewer side effects. Different types of supplements, like vitamin B12 or vitamin D, omega-3 fatty acids and amino acids like L-tryptophan are now accepted by much of the medical world as helpful in the treatment of depression. This is an article talking about how natural products can be used as adjuvants to antidepressants, written by James Lake, M.D., from the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, The University Caucus on Complementary, Alternative, and Integrative Medicine (http://www.apacam.org/) The previous "alternative" medicine is now "integrative" medicine. Reputable medical journals, like Psychiatric Times, have now special sections on integrative medicine. Here it is one of the most recent articles on this.

The coming decade, and certainly the rest of this century, will be marked by increased acceptance and cooperation among many types of experts working together, converging their expertise toward a more lasting and complete healing from emotional problems. Blending their knowledge will create a larger array of choices for people in need, making mental illness less stigmatizing and leading to far better results.

WHY YOU DON’T NEED TO BE AFRAID OF ANTI-ANXIETY MEDICATIONS

Many anxious people come to see a psychiatrist when they can think of nothing more to do on their own. I can’t tell you how many times I hear, “Doc, I feel so bad that I figured I had nothing more to lose by coming to see a psychiatrist.”

Why is it that the psychiatrist, trained specifically to deal with emotional illnesses, is the person people go too as a last resort?

I am aware of the stigma associated with mental illnesses. It often comes from lack of understanding of what anxiety and other mental illnesses are. I am also aware of how little psychiatrists have done so far to reach out to the people in need, the direct beneficiaries of their knowledge and training, and explain to them how much we now know about how to heal their suffering; that anxiety is nowadays a treatable condition; people no longer need to suffer silently and be ashamed of it.

I often talk to my patients about when is the right time to consider anti-anxiety medication as an additional aid in treating their anxiety. Some examples of the clinical criteria are:

· When the symptoms of anxiety are overwhelming--panic attacks, feeling out of control, crying or being irritable, even angry, almost all the time, or when anxiety interferes with one’s ability to get through the day.
· A common complaint of anxious people who could benefit from anti-anxiety medications is: “I can’t relax no matter how hard I try or what I do. I feel I am wired and tense day and night. I feel exhausted and I don’t know what else to do.”
· Sometimes people first try psychotherapy or “talk therapy.” It can be very effective. When it isn’t, and people feel they are “spinning their wheels,” making no real progress, it’s time to consider the medication option in addition and not instead of therapy.

Anti-anxiety medications are very effective. The problems people usually have with them are because of the way they are used. Just as driving a car can get you where you want to go, but it can also get you into a tree if you are not careful, so the anti-anxiety medications can work for you or can create problems if they are not used carefully. Patients can help their psychiatrists with the selection and adjustment of the medications. They can give their doctors an accurate account of their past experiences with medications, if any, and they can provide them with important feed-back about how the medication is or isn’t working. The psychiatrist, in turn, needs to explain to the patient what to expect from the medication, its benefits and possible side effects. If a psychiatrist doesn’t address all these issues right from the beginning, or does not listen to the patient’s feed-back, the patient will be better off finding another psychiatrist that is more perceptive.

The three major groups of medications used to treat anxiety:

Benzodiazepines: These are the “as needed” medications. People use them in various specific situations, for example if they get anxious in planes or closed spaces. They can be used when the anxiety becomes sharp and unbearable—panic attacks. They work only for a limited period of time, 4-5 hours for Ativan or Xanax and 7-8 hours for Restoril or Valium. The most common side effect is sleepiness. Because of that, driving is not recommended after taking them. Care should be taken by the patient to understand exactly what “as needed” means for him. Benzodiazepines could be addictive.

Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) are the medications from the Prozac’s family: Zoloft, Paxil, Celexa, Luvox, Lexapro. These medications need to be taken every day in order to work. With the exception of Lexapro, which works faster (about seven to ten days), all the others need about ten to fourteen days before they start working. They are used when high anxiety levels are experienced almost all day every day, with or without panic attacks. In these cases, an “as needed” medication will not be helpful enough. The SSRIs tend to increase the serotonin in the Central Nervous System and by doing that, they help “the brain relax.” The exact way of how that happens is still under research.
The possible side effects tend to be mild and transient: mild headaches, restlessness, nausea, sleepiness, to name only the most common ones. These medications are usually highly effective and well tolerated. If one of them causes side effects, switching to another medication in the same class may solve the problem.

Selective Serotonin-Norepinephrine Inhibitors (SNRI): These medications work on two receptors at the same time: serotonin and the norepinephrine receptors. They tend to have more side effects because of that. These medications are Effexor XR, Pristiq, Cymbalta. The SNRIs are not necessarily better than the SSRIs. The decision to use one versus another is made according to the severity of symptoms and past history of each patient. As always, the balance between the benefits and the potential side effects needs to be carefully considered.

None of the above medication should be taken without the advice and supervision of a physician, preferably a psychiatrist.

Whatever the medication plan decided upon, it needs to be followed consistently. Mixing any of these medications with alcohol or recreational drugs is a very bad idea. It will increase the propensity for side effects and it will decrease the efficacy of the medications.

Common mistakes in using

anti-anxiety medication:

· The starting dose is too high and the patient has side effects. Usually the side effects are not life threatening but can be very annoying: low grade headache, insomnia or excessive sleepiness, nausea and restlessness, etc. Reducing the starting dose and slowly going up to a more effective dose will help.
· In the desire to get a quick response to medications, psychiatrists sometimes increase the dose too fast. Increasing the strength in smaller increments and assessing the efficacy and the side effects at every level, will take care of this problem.
· Lack of communication between the patient and the psychiatrist can cause a great deal of mistakes in managing the medications well. The psychiatrist should encourage the patient to express his concerns. The patient should initiate a discussion of any and all concerns of his relevant to treatment and prescriptions.

The "Feeling Lost" Disorder

Do you have friends who keep saying they will do something that in reality they never do? For example, they could be saying "We always wanted to go to Paris. That would be lovely," yet every time they book their vacations, they invariably choose Chicago. Or have you heard of someone who is married for ages but always talks about divorce every time she is asked whether or not she is happy in her marriage--never divorcing, never even having an affair?

If you know people like this, you should know that they are not the exceptions but rather the norm. Often people dream of something they don't have or they would rather have, without taking any action to make that happen, and, of course, without ever being happy with what they already have. These people tend to be seriously disconnected from themselves and often very unhappy. Often people chasing the ghosts of unfulfilled dreams realize at some point they are feeling, in fact, lost in their own lives.

Whenever one of my patients starts talking about these never happening fantasy, I remind them that they are doing nothing to change. The general feeling that they are wasting their lives one way or another is, in general, prevalent.

Making new plans and getting ready to change will pave their way toward fulfilment and ultimately happiness. Using for guidance the often ignored post signs pointing them in the right direction, or the mild nudges from their best friends, they can find their way to either love what they already have or change to what will make them happier and more alive.

The good news for people suffering from the "feeling lost" disorder, is that better ways to live one's life are always available. Just open your eyes, look carefully around, expand your horizon, try a few new things and you will find your trail.

As a remainder that the right path for you is never lost, just hidden, I will give you a small gift. A talisman, rather:

This is a clover trail marker of the Clover Creek Trail, in Sequoia National Park. You can copy it and place it in a visible place, a reminder of the paths that are always there, even when you think you feel so stuck that you can't see, for a split moment, any way out. The truth is, a good way out is always there... Can you see it?

SUNDAYS IN MY CITY--THE GIANT FOREST

Do you know Unknown Mami? She's awesome and she's started a fun Sunday theme inviting you to get out and take pictures of your city to share with the rest of us. Click here for details and her logo and click here to see Unknown Mami's City today. She has initiated this series of posts based on personal travel impressions, a very informal and personal travel log from people all over the world.My friend Joanna, author of a wonderful blog, "The Fifty Factor" that you can check out at this address, put me on this path and I am grateful that she did.

THE GIANT FOREST

This year my husband and I ventured for Christmas into the Sequoia National Park. It is a beautiful region in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains, east of San Joaquin Valley or "The Central Valley"--one of the most fertile regions in the US. The gateway to the park is a quaint little town, Three Rivers, situated on the Kaweah river. From there, the road climbs to an altitude of 7,000 feet, going through the forest of giant Sequoia trees and descends on the other side of the mountain. A large part of the park is not accessible by car. Some of the peaks reach above 14,000 feet and can be seen all around from the road.

The real entrance in the park is at the "Four Generals"--a group of Seqoias guarding the road.

It's very hard to talk about the Sequoias. Being among them feels like being in a cathedral, not built by an extraordinary architect, but made out of living things, in the wild. I was so overwhelmed, I found myself whisper in awe, the way I would do in a place of worship, when I feel acutely the supernatural presence of a power much higher than myself.

I have found this description of the Sequoia trees in Wikipedia. I included it here for the technical details. But the incomparable majesty of these trees can not be accurately described in words. The feelings stirred up by being in the presence of these trees can only be experienced by being there. They are the largest and the oldest living beings on the planet and they only grow in this area of the Sierras--Sequoia National Park and Kings Canyon National Park, adjacent to each other.

Description

Leaves of Sequoiadendron giganteum
Giant Sequoias are the world's largest trees in terms of total volume (technically, only 7 living Giant Sequoia exceed the 42,500 cubic feet (1,200 m3) of the Lost Monarch Coast Redwood tree; see Largest trees). They grow to an average height of 50–85 m (165–280 ft) and 6–8 m (18–24 ft) in diameter. Record trees have been measured to be 94.8 m (311 ft) in height and 17 m (57 ft) in diameter.[1] The oldest known Giant Sequoia based on ring count is 3,500 years old. Sequoia bark is fibrous, furrowed, and may be 90 cm (3 ft) thick at the base of the columnar trunk. It provides significant fire protection for the trees. The leaves are evergreen, awl-shaped, 3–6 mm long, and arranged spirally on the shoots. The seed cones are 4–7 cm long and mature in 18–20 months, though they typically remain green and closed for up to 20 years; each cone has 30-50 spirally arranged scales, with several seeds on each scale giving an average of 230 seeds per cone. The seed is dark brown, 4–5 mm long and 1 mm broad, with a 1 mm wide yellow-brown wing along each side. Some seed is shed when the cone scales shrink during hot weather in late summer, but most seeds are liberated when the cone dries out from fire heat and/or insect damage (see Ecology, below).

Giant sequoia cones.
Giant sequoia regenerates by seed. Trees up to about 20 years old may produce stump sprouts subsequent to injury. Giant sequoia of all ages may sprout from the bole when old branches are lost to fire or breakage, but (unlike coast redwood) mature trees do not sprout from cut stumps. Young trees start to bear cones at the age of 12 years.
At any given time, a large tree may be expected to have approximately 11,000 cones. The upper part of the crown of any mature Giant Sequoia invariably produces a greater abundance of cones than its lower portions. A mature giant sequoia has been estimated to disperse from 300,000-400,000 seeds per year. The winged seeds may be carried up to 180 m (600 ft) from the parent tree.
Lower branches die fairly readily from shading, but trees less than 100 years old retain most of their dead branches. Trunks of mature trees in groves are generally free of branches to a height of 20–50 m, but solitary trees will retain low branches.

This is how the home of the Giant Forest looks from the distance.